As heroin use spikes in the Port Jervis, N.Y.-Pike County area, police have started working together across state lines to target dealers.

The tools they have are the two states' drug statutes.

"You use the most effective law to deal with the problem," said Orange County District Attorney Frank Phillips, who believes New York's drug sentencing reforms have lowered the cost of business for drug dealers.

In both states, possession of small amounts of any illicit drug — in the personal-use range — is a misdemeanor. Possession with intent to sell moves the offense into the felony realm.

"Ten or 20 grams of heroin possession in itself, that shows that there is an intent to sell of distribute heroin," said Pike County District Attorney Raymond Tonkin. "That's a lot of heroin."

Possess 56 grams of heroin — just under 2 ounces — would bring a mandatory minimum of five years and up to 15 years for a first offense in Pennsylvania; in New York, the offender could get 1-9 years or be put into treatment.

The New York Legislature has lowered sentencing ranges over the past several years; both New York and Pennsylvania have started using treatment rather than incarceration for many offenders.

"The purpose of the drug laws, overall, is the protection and safety of the community," Tonkin said.

Phillips' office has dealt with decades of assaults and homicides driven by drugs and the gangs that make their living off the addictions of others, and who enforce their turf with guns, knives and a climate of fear.

"It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that violence in part and parcel of the drug business, as we've seen in the federal prosecutions in Newburgh," he said.